And, now, NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus has been flagrantly flouting liberal values in its construction. NYU, in the style of President Obama, is just finding out about this, as mad as anyone if the allegations prove true, and determined to get to the bottom of this.

New York University issued an apology on Monday to any workers on its newly completed Abu Dhabi campus who were “not treated in line with the standards we set,” after The New York Times reported widespread abuses among a labor force that numbered about 6,000 at its peak.

The article described workers being arrested, beaten and deported to their home countries after striking over pay. Recruitment fees, of approximately a year’s wages, were all but required, and laborers had to work overtime, sometimes seven days a week, to earn the base pay they were promised. Not one of the dozens of workers interviewed had his own passport. Some were living in filthy, crowded apartments.

These conditions aren’t especially rare in big construction projects of the United Arab Emirates, and NYU knew this. The university had ostensibly planned for avoiding just this problem. But again, in the style of President Obama, they had prepared for it by saying it was a problem on which they would brook no violations, and then promptly went about building their project without ever checking whether any of their values were being honored. Totally checked out.

In 2009, after announcing the project, N.Y.U. had issued a “statement of labor values” saying those building N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi would be treated better.

In a statement to the N.Y.U. community, its president, John Sexton, called the workers’ treatment, “if true as reported, troubling and unacceptable.”

“They are out of line with the labor standards,” he continued, “we deliberately set for those constructing the ‘turnkey’ campus being built for us on Saadiyat Island and inconsistent with what we understood to be happening on the ground for those workers.”

In a separate statement, to the website NYU Local, a spokesman, John Beckman, wrote “To any worker who was not treated in line with the standards we set and whose circumstances went undetected and unremedied, we offer our apologies.”

Mr. Beckman added that N.Y.U. would work with “our Abu Dhabi partners” and Mott MacDonald, the compliance monitor for the project, to look into the findings by The Times, which were “so at odds with the labor values we put in place.”

At this rate, in a couple months, this will be a “phony scandal,” and in a year it’ll be old news. Too bad for this guy:

Ramkumar Rai, a Nepali immigrant who worked on the N.Y.U. campus until a year ago, told The Times that he and a friend were still waiting for the last six months’ of his wages, which were 16 months overdue. Told of the apology, he asked, “When will the money come? If the money comes it will be O.K.”

When social conservatives are caught in extramarital affairs, we are told by liberals who usually insist that one’s private life should be no biggie as long as it doesn’t affect one’s ability to govern, that the social conservative must pay a price because of the hypocrisy. Frankly, that’s largely fair. But when it comes to tax cheats or other violators of the liberal value system, we are told that conservatives have no standing on which to demand a hefty price, hypocrisy be damned. Conservatives are seemingly aggressively held to the standards of both parties but liberals to the values of neither.

The last couple months makes one wonder if the reason liberals always demand laws to make everyone adhere to their values, is because they can’t manage to live up to them on their own. They have to be forced.

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When social conservatives are caught in extramarital affairs, we are told by liberals who usually insist that one’s private life should be no biggie as long as it doesn’t affect one’s ability to govern, that the social conservative must pay a price because of the hypocrisy.

Exactly which elite, liberal institution does have to live up to the Left’s values?

Wake up MKH, when your only value is that the “End Justifies the Means”, you have no values to live up to. Hypocrites are people who claim to have values, morals and ethics, but do not live by them. People whgse only values are that the End Justifies the Means don’t have any values to live up to, therefore they cannot be hypocrites.

Exactly which elite, liberal institution does have to live up to the Left’s values?

The Left’s “values” are always for the Little People. For themselves, they can have and do whatever they want because they’re the intelligentsia elitists that make Utopia possible in the first place, thus deserve more.

“The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. … The real arena is corrupt and bloody.” p.24

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means… The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be….” pp.25-26

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….” p.29

“The seventh rule… is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics….” p.34

“The tenth rule… is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments…. It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances at any given time… Who, and how many will support the action?… If weapons are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you will move quickly or slowly…” p.36

“Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them. … Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves.” p.126

Always remember the first rule of power tactics (pps.127-134):

1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.

3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….”

8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”

11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.”

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.” (pps.127-134)

The last couple months makes one wonder if the reason liberals always demand laws to make everyone adhere to their values, is because they can’t manage to live up to them on their own. They have to be forced.

Their values are only to be forced on others. They have moved far, far beyond such petty restrictions. They embody those values so they don’t have to actually abide by them.

It will be interesting to see if they can prevent egregious gender discrimination, sexual abuse and assault in an area which treats women as property. It will also be interesting to see if their students are jailed for consuming alcohol and if women students will be jailed if they accuse someone of rape.

Pride and arrogance are the Left’s greatest weakness. Ridicule their so called intelligence, their pretend compassion, ridicule their looks, their make believe accomplishments. This is how you attach the left. You use Saul Alinsky’s rule 13 on them through ridicule.

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’

Maybe, but I’m not too sure. I think there are other ways, such as sticking to our values and showing others what really works so they can figure out the lies and propaganda on their own. May take a hard, hard fall to do that, but experience is often the best teacher.

I’d rather go down being honest and being able to look at myself in the mirror each day even if it doesn’t mean “winning”. Didn’t say we should fight or resist, but I don’t believe we want to become them.

Maybe, but… I wonder if like so many other situations, Alinsky’s rules work because they are used on ‘normal’ people. Like expecting Islamists to behave like ‘normal’ people, psychopaths to behave like ‘normal’ people, etc – I think the evidence shows that liberals are not ‘normal’ people.

They can’t be shamed. They have no remorse. They have no respect for others. They will lie, cheat and steal – in front of everyone’s face, in the most unimaginable bald-faced, unembarrassed ways, and fully expect – no, *know* that they’ll get away with it…

I’m not confident that trying to ridicule them will have any affect at all.

I simply fear this would be another instance where we expect them to behave and react like we would – like ‘normal’ people would – and they simply won’t, and we’ll be wondering – again – what the ever-loving f*ck is wrong with them.

I came to ‘chew bubble gum (play by the rules, follow the law, work within the system, where the rules apply to everyone equally, with expectations that all will work the way it’s supposed to), or kick a$$’.

Oh, do not get me wrong, I do not advocate becoming evil to fight evil. What I do advocate is people waking the hell up and realizing that we are in fact in a fight, and that our opponents have no moral or ethical values. We are not shooting at each other from 100 yards away, this is up close and personal with a knife and a sharp stick warfare. We do not have to become them, but we will have to get our hands dirty.

ESPN has been ‘screaming’ about the work conditions in Qatar ahead of the FIFA World Cup, for a while now, but nobody gives a shite. Yet the Palis are the ones who are being ‘opressed’ by the Israelis and the whole world cares only about that. Give them a darn state so they can treat their people and women like dawgs, which they already do. And make it state-sanctioned. You’ll see how the lefties lose their interest in no time…human rights abuses, what human rights abuses, it’s just cultural differences, get with the time :)..

I think there’s a little bit more than just the media. Alinsky’s tactics apply various theories of behavior of modification, both classical and operant. Use of certain type of stimuli can bring about a certain response, etc.

If we learn what kind of stimuli is being used and what kind of response is desired, we might be able to thwart these efforts more than we do.

They can’t be shamed. They have no remorse. They have no respect for others. They will lie, cheat and steal – in front of everyone’s face, in the most unimaginable bald-faced, unembarrassed ways, and fully expect – no, *know* that they’ll get away with it…

I’m not confident that trying to ridicule them will have any affect at all.

I simply fear this would be another instance where we expect them to behave and react like we would – like ‘normal’ people would – and they simply won’t, and we’ll be wondering – again – what the ever-loving f*ck is wrong with them.

And we’ll continue losing ground.

Midas on May 20, 2014 at 10:10 PM

Oh make no mistake about it, they are extremely susceptible to ridicule, why do you think they are making such a big deal about the Hilda Beasts age and general health being off the table? Why did Antony Wiener resign? Because the left can’t stand to be ridicules, that’s why.

You guys keep assuming something that will never happen: Leftists will never admit to fault when their hypocrisy is aired, because they are covered in perpetuity by the Indulgence that reads, “but my heart was in the right place…”

This is why going Alinsky on them doesn’t work – that is, for the most part.

My advice on this issue, MKH, is that the only way to go Alinsky on Leftists is that beautiful little Rule Number Five:

RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

Here’s an example of mockery to socialists that you can use on the Brits and the Frogs.

Background: the first thing that goes when a country goes full-bore socialist is military spending. As an example, the Brits fielded a fleet of 90 surface combat ships back in the early 1980′s, but now only field a fleet one third the size.

Look at the size of the military forces of every EU nation from the 1950′s to present, and you’ll find the same thing.

Now for the mockery, Libya invasion edition:

Obama: Dude, I wanna look tough, but I don’t want to get into a long term relationship with another combat situation, so I’ll lead from behind.

Brits: Libya! Bast*rds humiliated us on that Lockerbie terrorist thingy, we want oil but we’re mad! Let’s topple Qaddafi! Hey, Obama, can you help us?

Obama: I’m right there with you, leading from behind, guys.

Brits: Ok, let’s go…wait, dude, we don’t have any flattops! How are we gonna do this? (Nelson’s rolling in his grave long before this, but…damn)

I made this comment on the headlines thread, but it’s worth repeating. The military requires classes on recognizing human trafficking — a Bush 43 initiative, of course — and if you read the description of the working conditions for NYU in Abu Dhabi, they correspond to all the warning signs of human trafficking.

The article described workers being arrested, beaten and deported to their home countries after striking over pay. Recruitment fees, of approximately a year’s wages, were all but required, and laborers had to work overtime, sometimes seven days a week, to earn the base pay they were promised. Not one of the dozens of workers interviewed had his own passport. Some were living in filthy, crowded apartments.

Those conditions are common to projects in the United Arab Emirates, where poor South Asian immigrants make up most of the work force.

Withholding of pay, beatings, requiring the paying of fees to get a job so that the person is in debt from the beginning of the job, and never pays it off, keeping the passports to prevent employees from leaving, filthy and crowded living conditions.

Moslems have a long and unsavory history of human trafficking. They’re hardly the only ones to do this in the past, but they seem to be the last holdouts.

I’d argue that it’s only because we don’t ridicule them enough. Breitbart was very good at it: without his ridicule of Weiner and mockery of the MSM, you would have never heard about Anthony Weiner’s twitter escapades, and he’d be well on his way to a Presidential run by now.

The trick is to be loud and consistent in mockery, something Breitbart did better than anyone else.

Moslems have a long and unsavory history of human trafficking. They’re hardly the only ones to do this in the past, but they seem to be the last holdouts.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 20, 2014 at 10:52 PM

Yergin argued in Commanding Heights that slavery goes hand in hand with communism. Socialists are good at getting away with slavery in practice, without it being called that: just look at their record in the African subcontinent over the past 50 years. The difference with socialists is, they are better at finding crony capitalists scapegoats to play along with them. When the thing eventually blows up, socialists then hang the inevitable results of this behaviour upon them.

The last couple months makes one wonder if the reason liberals always demand laws to make everyone adhere to their values, is because they can’t manage to live up to them on their own. They have to be forced.

Not quite. Liberals are people who truly believe themselves smarter than everyone else. They also derive great pleasure in getting something more. No matter how trivial that “more” may be, it gives them great pleasure to believe they “got away” with something. Thus they create complex laws and systems for 2 reasons. 1) They get the moral satisfaction of believing they are helping whatever the social justice cause of the day is. 2) They game that system, so that they can get the thrill of “more”, even if “more” just really means losing less.

Ridicule would work on liberals, but the problem is: they are insulated and protected from it by the Media.
The liberal viewpoint is actively promoted and supported by the Media.
People won’t respond to ridicule, if they feel that, overall, their views and actions are supported and popular.

When social conservatives are caught in extramarital affairs, we are told by liberals who usually insist that one’s private life should be no biggie as long as it doesn’t affect one’s ability to govern, that the social conservative must pay a price because of the hypocrisy. Frankly, that’s largely fair.

No it’s not.

Liberals don’t say at election time that they are all for adultery and all the things they will later get a free pass on as supposed non-hypocrites. They say they are for “family values” too, and how dare you suggest otherwise.

When social conservatives are caught in extramarital affairs, we are told by liberals who usually insist that one’s private life should be no biggie as long as it doesn’t affect one’s ability to govern, that the social conservative must pay a price because of the hypocrisy. Frankly, that’s largely fair.

No it’s not. Liberals should also pay a price for having them because extramarital affairs are morally wrong. One’s political advocacy does not change the intrinsic immorality of the act.

Ridicule would work on liberals, but the problem is: they are insulated and protected from it by the Media.
The liberal viewpoint is actively promoted and supported by the Media.

justltl on May 21, 2014 at 5:19 AM

Whatever happens, they have got,
The megaphone. And we have not.

The megaphone is mass media domination.

Anyone not serious about addressing that is not fit to be a national leader, because they are OK with liberals dominating the national culture and political agenda permanently.

What is to be done?

Instapundit is right: begin by repealing the Hollywood tax cuts. Continue by killing the ridiculously extended copyrights. And then take it from there. The right attitude is: no more freebies for the bad guys. Especially since they are partisan bad guys. Partisan supporters of corruption don’t deserve bipartisan support.

It does no good for conservative leaders to say “we can’t accomplish anything on key moral issues like abortion until there is a great change of culture,” and at the same time go along with providing rivers of taxpayers dollars and artificial monopolies for the people that corrupted the social and political culture and are still corrupting it.

The ends of the spectrum have the most fully developed and entrenched political philosophies. They are not easily swayed by external forces like the Media.

As you move toward the center from either end, the political belief systems and political activism become less and less well formed to non-existent. The members become increasingly malleable and susceptible to outside influence and propaganda. This group might not even vote unless pushed to do so by outside forces from the Left or Right. They are the center of the bell curve and therefore the largest group numerically.

The Media targets those toward the middle of the bell curve. Alinsky tactics have increasing impact as you move in from the Left or Right.

-Destroy the Hardcore Left by whatever means available that are in keeping with the moral and legal standards to which we hold ourselves.
-Expose, destroy and replace the Leftist Media machine or, at a minimum, diminish its power and influence.
-Educate the masses.